Delightfully stressful scenario: Some 9-year-old who’s already drowning in possessions invites your kid to his or her birthday. You need an appropriate gift, but what? My friend Julie thought she had it nailed: A Swiss Army Knife! Classic, cunning, status-y, and besides, didn’t Angelina Jolie buy Maddox one? Big mistake: The birthday child’s mother reacted […]

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Just when you thought Jon Gosselin, of “Jon & Kate Plus 8” fame, couldn’t get any more loathsome, People magazine reported that he’d signed a new deal to design kids’ clothing for the Ed Hardy label with help from his new girlfriend. This seemed unfathomable and was later refuted by the rigorous journalists at Entertainment […]

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Nature vs. nurture department: Here, we have a video of Britney’s offspring, Sean Preston and Jayden James, spontaneously dancing to “Toxic” during London rehearsals for her European tour. I think you’ll agree that both boys have a precocious gift for choreography: Jayden strikes a killer pose at 00:10, while Sean executes a tricky crissy-cross leg […]

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The current obsession with over-achieving parenting has yielded at least one good thing: some beautifully overachieving toys. Rarely before have children’s products been so well-designed. My favorite current example: The reusable fabric wall stickers created by the Australians behind Mae—especially this completely cool update on paper dolls. Ingenious: The persistent problem with paper dolls, of […]

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Here, we have a $92 prefabricated eco-lemonade stand. Made of premium recycled cardboard. What a marvelous, crucial invention. Only a reckless parent would let his child attempt entrepreneurship spontaneously, by herself—possibly suffering injury or embarrassment while improvising a lemonade stand out of, say, a folding card table. Babygadget.com, who ardently recommends this product, has this […]

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